Paul.com fights PaulDotCom.com over trademark

Two techies fight over “Paul Dot Com”.

The owner of Paul.com is fighting the PaulDotCom security podcast over the latter’s attempt to trademark “PAULDOTCOM”.

In November 2011, Paul Asadoorian filed a trademark application for PAULDOTCOM, the name he uses for his IT security podcast hosted at PaulDotcom.com. Once the mark was published for opposition, the owner of Paul.com filed a challenge with the USPTO Trademark Trial and Appeal Board (TTAB).

Paul Niedermeyer and his firm PN, LLC owns Paul.com, which he uses to promote his own computer software and security services. (Niedermeyer also owns PN.com.)

You can see the grounds for confusion between the names, especially when you consider that both people operate in a similar field.

Paul Asadoorian of PaulDotcom.com states he got the nickname since he’s a geek.

“A friend of mine a while back just blurted it out and its stuck ever since,” he claims on his site.

Also on his site he wrote, “Please do not confuse me with “paul.com”, thats (sic) a different “paul”.

Asadoorian filed his response to the appeal on Monday.